Pink's Response to Criticism of Her Weight Deserves a Standing Ovation

On Saturday night, the pop icon posted a few adorable photos of herself and her family at a benefit for cancer research.

Cute as they were, the photos were met by some despicable, body-shaming tweets:

Pink, a badass entertainer known for both her fitness and acrobatic daring during her performances, didn't let the rude comments slide. In a response on Twitter Sunday, she pointed out that commenting on someone's weight at, of all places, a cancer benefit, was hardly appropriate.

Rather than aggressively criticize the body-shamers, however, she kept her message positive.

"I felt very pretty. In fact, I feel beautiful," she wrote. "I am perfectly fine, perfectly happy, and my healthy, voluptuous and crazy-strong body is having some much deserved time off."

Finally, to poke fun at the silliness of fat jokes, she signed the message with "Love, cheesecake."

"Fuckin' perfect": Pink's response brilliantly exposes the misguided attention given to her body instead of the actual issue at hand — that is, funding for cancer research.

It's far from unusual for celebrities,especially female ones, to encounter unfair criticism about their bodies. Earlier this year, for example, British celeb Katie Hopkins joked that Kelly Clarkson had eaten "all of her backing singers." These incidents, as Mic has written previously, underscore "how distressingly common it is to judge women first and foremost on their appearance."

But body-shaming, as Pink proves in her response, accomplishes nothing other than to spread hate and shame. Instead of internalizing the negative energy projected by the Twitter haters, she reminds us that all different body types can be healthy, and that everyone has the right to feel beautiful.

Dr. Marcie Bianco is a Staff Writer at Mic, a Contributing Editor at Curve Magazine, and an adjunct associate professor at Hunter College. She has contributed to AfterEllen, Feministing, The Feminist Wire, The Huffington Post, Lambda Literary, XO Jane, and The Women’s Review of Books. She writes and lectures about ethics, from feminism to race relations. Her current writing projects include a manuscript about lesbian academic affairs and a collection of feminist essays.